Gartmore at Home Day/5th Anniversary Celebrations

So Saturday was our last day of celebrations. Well not completely the last, we still have Gartmore to look forward to. Saturday we had one of our Gartmore at Home days. This time there was only Izzi continuing the bag lessons. This meant that people could relax and get on with their own projects. It was a good day and there were a lot of laughs. This all began with Stephanie who had commandeered a trolley to carry all her supplies.

Donna continued to work on a dolls dress for the rag doll. Whilst Stephanie worked on her knitting bag.

Izzi moved on to teaching everyone to add pockets to the bags.

We also had a surprise visitor. Sheena and baby Charlotte appeared at the door which gave everyone the excuse to down tools.

Isabel was of course back on baby sitting duty. However it took her a while to realise that Charlotte was awake so a few others got cuddles first.

Fran had brought along some crochet that her gran had started but with no pattern. Crochet experts were brought in to help.

Alison brought a new project. She is now working on some chunky cross stitch. It will make the cover of a cushion.

Aileen kindly did some baking and brought along some delicious banana loaf.

The first of the bags were also finished. These were by people who aren't going to Gartmore but still wanted to make a bag. This first one was finished by Janice.

You can see all the pockets on the inside which makes the bag ideal for knitting projects.

Stephanie finished hers next. Her material had more of a sheen to it rather than the canvas style fabric the others were using.

In the space of the day I also got my very own knitting bag. Thanks to Izzi, Janice and Stephanie. They hid the fact that it was for me well. I had even threatened to pinch the fabric when Izzi first showed it to us. I love it!

We also had some finishes. Caroline has been showing off her beginner sewing skills again. Doesn't look like a beginner to me. She made this little zipped bag to hold her crochet hooks and knitting gadgets. She even managed to get her initials on there.

These zipped bags were made by Izzi for Lyn and Fee to make up for teaching them an awkward way to add zips. I love the monkey fabric.

Margaret finished this during the day. This is a lovely hooded cardigan she knitted for some friends who have just become grandparents.

Alison finished the train cross stitch she had been working on the last few weeks. It will become a card for Fathers Day.

 Linda crocheted this gorgeous granny square scarf for her shoebox charity.

Isabel also finished this lovely scarf done in crochet. I think this was some of the yarn that she got from the charity shop (when she did last years challenge). Hopefully she won't lose this one.

As well as bringing along an unfinished project by her gran Fran brought along some of her grans completed crochet. Some of these are over 80 years old. The amount of work that has went into them are amazing. Everyone in that day were astounded by them.

The last of our celebrations that day was a trip to Frankie & Benny's. This is the first time we have all went out to dinner and we had a great time. Think we will be doing this again. We won't wait five years this time.

At the end the group gave me a bottle of wine and some vouchers. Just want to say a huge thank you for that . You honestly didn't have to. It's been a fun five years and I have enjoyed seeing what everyone has been working on. Lots of great friends have been made and I can't wait to see what we have ahead of us. Thanks everyone!

5th Anniversary: Part 1

I was going to hold off posting about our challenge night as I had forgotten to photograph a couple of the challenge entries. I will get the last one photographed on Tuesday. However, I had planned on splitting the post about Tuesday night into two because I wanted the challenge itself to have a post all on it's own. It has only just occurred to me that I could post one of those parts just now. So here is the first part of our celebrations.

Elaine is famous for her cake decorating and has in fact entered cakes into previous challenges. One of which won. Knowing that she wouldn't be doing one for this years challenge I asked her if she would mind designing a cake for us. She here we have our very own knitting bag cake. It even has fondant balls of yarn.

The cake design is based on the bag Izzi has been teaching everyone to make over the last few weeks. You can see Izzi's prototype in the background.

Not sure if you can see it in the photo but Elaine made sure that 5 was represented int here with the needle size and the row counter.

As well as being challenge night it was also a swap night. Everyone brought lots of goodies that they were no longer wanting. What we didn't take went to the charity shop Roberta volunteers in.

I also brought along some edible goodies as promised. It was a celebration after all. I even managed to bake some cookies and a banana loaf.

It was quite a busy night and I think everyone had a good time.

There were even some finishes in there. Margaret finished this baby blanket for friends about to become grandparents.

It turns out Jean has been hiding talents from us. Not only does she make wine bottle cosies. She also does beading. She was at Gartmore a few weeks back and made this gorgeous bracelet while she was there.

Caroline has found yet another talent. She got some instructions from the Internet and made this lovely draw-string bag. Since she didn't have ribbon she made the ties herself. Love the fabric and you wouldn't know this was her first sewing project.

Lyn was preparing for superhero day at work and knitted Superman. I have to admit I have a soft spot for Superman. He looks fantastic.

At the end of the night we of course had to try some of Elaine's cake. It was such a shame to cut it so I had Elaine do it for us. I can safely say that it tasted as good as it looked.

Oh, and we also had another new member along. Definitely a great night and I look forward to seeing what crops up with this group. Our challenge post will be next so look out for that!